Properly Married
by Pemonynen
Summary: "Scars always linger, though only some are visible." The past can't be changed, and the marks remain, but the morning after their wedding, Mary and Matthew start to make new memories together.


_Me again! I am a busy bee this week! Anyway, this came about on Tumblr last night when a picture of Matthew from 2.05 started a conversation about how it would be nice, in series 3, to see some acknowledgement of his injury, and so this happened…_

_Enjoy!_

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**Properly Married**

The sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains and Mary stirred, stretching out her limbs with a smile. Last night had been… She flooded with heat at the memory. It had been wonderful. She had never thought…especially after _that_, but every tender kiss, every gentle caress, every deep stroke of him within her, had pushed that away, had cleansed her and made everything right and perfect. She grinned and covered her face with her hands, embarrassed, which was ridiculous really, given that she was naked and her clothes were strewn across the room after…_last night_. The cold metal of her wedding ring caught her cheek and she pulled her hand away to look at it, carefully placed onto her finger not even twenty-four hours ago. She grinned again; she had never felt so happy, so content, so relaxed, and she liked it. The sleeping body next to her shifted and she turned to look at him properly in the bright light of morning. Him. Her husband Matthew.

He was facing away from her, almost on his front, his head resting on his arms, his thick blonde hair sticking out at all angles. She smiled fondly, reaching out a hand, before changing her mind and letting it drop back down. She didn't want to wake him; she wanted some time to look at him unguarded. Her dark eyes travelled down over his head, where her fingers had twisted in his hair as he had kissed and licked and sucked along her neck and across her breasts; his broad shoulders that still bore very faint grooves where her fingernails had dug into his skin as she had hurtled over the precipice of her release; his back, that she had clutched at and ran her hands over as they had moved together, finding and building a steady rhythm. As her eyes drifted down, she gasped as something caught her eye.

The sheet had slipped from him (from them) during the night, barely covering him, but it was not that that caught her attention. It was the dark, mangled skin of a scar on his lower back, slightly bigger than her hand, that had stopped her. She hadn't seen it last night; of course she hadn't. It had been dark, and they had been…_occupied_. She had seen it when it was a fresh wound; bloody, broken and raw, and had seen it when it had started to heal; scabbed and sore, but she hadn't seen it since then. He'd been confined to the wheelchair, and then…Mary wasn't his nurse anymore. She swallowed back tears as she thought about the wheelchair, and everything that it had represented. A life without walking, with being dependent on someone to perform even the simplest tasks, like dressing… A life without what they had shared last night.

Words, spoken long ago, rang loudly in her ears. For months, Matthew had been told, and had believed, that he would never experience what they had shared. Would never have been able to carry his wife over the threshold of their home, or kneel down as he removed her shoes and stockings, placing tender kisses along her thighs, or tangle his legs with hers as they had clung together after their lovemaking…

But he could walk, and he had picked her up and twirled her round and round, and he had stood straight and proud at the altar, and had led her, smoothly and confidently, in a waltz, and her feet had brushed up and down his legs as they had slowly moved together, before her legs had wrapped around him.

But it might not have been… But it was. Overwhelmed by her thoughts, and the swelling of her heart as it filled with love for him, she wiped her eyes, the prickling feeling the first indication that she had been crying. She had seen him at his very worst, and now she knew him at his very best, and never before had she been more grateful for his miraculous recovery, for his love…for him.

On a whim she curled her back and placed a soft kiss to the scar, smiling as he shifted, causing the sheet to slip down further, and seeing his bottom for the first time, biting her lip as she remembered how it had felt against her hands in the darkness. Daringly, she let her hand drift to rest on it, before letting her fingers trail up, back over the scar, up his spine and back down again. His skin was smooth and warm to touch, and she wondered why she was only letting her hand indulge in the pleasure of it. Moving so that she was leaning over him, she lightly pressed her lips to the scar once more, and then followed the same path that her fingers had taken. Kissing all over his back and shoulders; light brushes of her lips against him, wanting to know every single part of him. He shifted under her touch, and she wondered if he was awake, if he had been awake for a while.

Suddenly, and without warning, she somehow found herself underneath him. His eyes wide and bright, hands resting on either side of her head, holding himself over her.

"Good morning," he grinned, leaning in to kiss her deeply, because he wanted to. Because he could. She smiled and returned the kiss, her hands sliding up his arms, coming to rest on his shoulders. "What were you doing? To my back?"

"I was looking…at your scar." Something flickered in his eyes, something that she didn't recognise, before he kissed her again.

"Oh. And?" His heart thudded as he wondered what she would make of the imperfection that marred him, that was a permanent reminder of…_then_. And she could tell, from the tremor in his voice, and the flicker of emotion across his face, that he was worried. He thought it was something to be ashamed of.

"You don't have to hide anything from me you know," she leaned up to kiss him again, pulling his head down to hers, and in that moment, he knew. He understood, and he could not have loved her then any more than he already did. The kiss deepened quickly, the new sensation of skin against skin intoxicating and addictive, taking over them both as hands moved, as mouths opened… They held each other as closely as they could; quiet gasps and moans breaking through the silence as their eyes met and they smiled, nodded, and he eased himself inside her, pausing at the feel of her tight around him, already familiar… They moved slowly, languidly, taking their time as they hadn't done the previous night, delighting in the sounds the other made, of the image of strong arms and muscles that flexed, and of flushed marble skin and a head flung back in ecstasy…the fire burning through them both, building and blinding in its intensity, pushing them closer and closer to the edge…until everything tightened, and they shattered together with sharp cries of pleasure, collapsing against the pillows as they trembled against each other; satisfied, sweaty and spent, limbs curling around each other as they smiled, and started to drift back to sleep.

They had both been hurt, and both bore the scars of that pain. But they had healed each other, in more ways than one. They really were properly married, in every possible way that they could be.

And neither could have asked for more than that.

_**Fin.**_

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_Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts!_


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